All posts in “passpack”

The office has been buzzing with Monday morning news and I’ll try to get it all into one post. The Passpack weekend was eventful, to say the least and we also have yet another release on its way…but this one needs some user help. Here is a recap of the weekend and what is to come:

Passpack Sponsors Girl Geek Dinner

Last week we posted about Passpack’s sponsoring of Rome’s first ever Girl Geek Dinner and the outcome was a success! The evening really went well thanks to the help of everyone involved and we met some really interesting women. Take a look at some video and pictures from the night at passpack.com/girls

Auto-login Bug. Squashed.

Recently, users were telling us about the peculiar behavior of Passpack’s auto-login – it was happening to some of us here as well. It turns out, there was in fact a bug and the UTF-8 encoding was “getting lost in translation” during the encoding and decoding for the 1 Click Login encrypted mini-packs. In other words, some packs that contained entry titles with non alpha-numeric characters (for example ò, È, җ, ễ, ﭛ ,שּׁ) may have had difficulties with auto-login.
In other other words, auto-login was acting a bit naughty
Problem solved. Sorry to those of you who had to copy and paste your way around. Let us know if you are still experiencing any trouble.

Passpack Messaging Testers Needed

If you’re wondering what messaging has to do with passwords – good question. Messaging is one of the first steps that Passpack is taking towards the release of full sharing passwords between accounts. Messaging will allow users to send encrypted messages from one Passpack user to other Passpack users of your choice. Do you see all the possibilities in store?

As long as you have a Passpack account and a friend with a Passpack account, you can be a tester.

Be the First to Test Messaging?

Rome’s first Girl Geek Dinner less than one day away and we ladies are just about prepared.

Here’s a look into our to do list:

Girl Geek gadget

Tara’s speech

Dress/Hair

What we’re working on now, can’t be finished without the help of our Girl Geeks themselves. You may not have been able to make the trip to Rome, but that doesn’t mean you have to miss Tara’s speech or other highlights of the evening.

Join us Friday evening, September 26 and see what happens when Passpack sponsors Rome’s Girl Geek Dinner. Not only is most of the staff going, but our cameras are too.

Check out the photos from the event and let your friends know how much you love Girl Geeks by grabbing the badge.

This weekend proved to be pretty full of surprises for Passpack. While we were working on our future releases, Passpack got some pretty noteworthy attention both in the States and in Italy. Take a look at why we all have smiles on our faces today…

Mind the Bridge

You may remember Passpack’s announcement of it’s first round of seed funding and since the start up world is a crazy race forward, we’ve already started thinking about our next round of funding and one of the first events we plan on participating in is Venice’s Mind the Bridge Venture Camp on October 10-11.

Passpack is officially one of the Fall 2008 Mind the Bridge finalists. We have been holding our breath for the past 2 weeks and news came in that Passpack was chosen, alongside 13 other start-ups.

Wish us luck!

Passpack Goes National – on MSNBC

We posted Passpack’s appearance on NBC-TV which aired in a few cities including Detroit, Palm Springs and Charlottesville, but guess what? MSNBC’s Tech Watch talked about Passpack too and this time it went national! If you didn’t get a chance to see it…

Sarah Palin’s email security hack has recently been the topic of every news outlet and only brings to light the importance of password management.

The password reset story has caught attention for more than obvious reasons and fingerpointing has become rampant, diverting the attention on Palin somewhat inappropriately. Speculation as to how her Yahoo account was compromised varies, but the VP Candidate may just be the perfect example of how common password habits can expose a common security risk. And poor password habits are not only restricted to potential Vice Presidents.

Alaska’s Governor Is Not the Only Target

Sarah Palin may have spared herself the negative public eye if she had followed the basic rules of password security: long is strong. This cannot be stressed enough but in light of the Palin email hack, strong responses to (password recovery) security questions is just as important. It’s just too easy to guess a zip code/pet’s name/mother’s maiden name – it’s rarely just guessing, all that information is usually found online.

Passpack’s notes field gives you the option of answering a rarely used, yet important security question with an obscure response:

Tara was interviewed by Words Cause Radio on Saturday. If you are curious to know a little more about Passpack’s co-founder and the beginnings of Passpack, you may want to check out the Words Cause Radio show which features Passpack’s very own Tara who was asked to speak about how she has helped make passpack.com more than just an idea. She also gives some great advice to those who may be thinking about starting a company of their own.

So sit back, relax and learn a little something about Tara and a little something more about Passpack and let us know what you’ve learned…

Ok, so yes, we’ve caught the Google Chrome fever here at Passpack HQ – it’s a beaut, and Passpack runs like a dream!

I suppose that should come as no surprise, as Chrome is built for speed with Apple’s WebKit in the core (among others). We ran a browser encryption speed benchmark some time ago, and while the browsers have evolved since then, and WebKit continues to shame the others in pure number-crunching power. Believe me, Passpack’s heavy use of Javascript cryptographic libraries puts any browser to the test.

Plus… I just love the “center of the universe” feeling I get from signing into Passpack with a Google login, in a Google browser. Then using Passpack’s 1 Click Login as a springboard to the rest of the web (or other Google accounts! ahhhh).

Ok, kidding aside, Google Chrome shifts the browser paradigm from single-thread to multi-process browser. It’s built with the new web in mind. In particular, it’s built for cloud computing and running software as a service. Despite the first bug being found (of course, it’s 1 day old) I expect the new paradigm to offer a chance to plug up some of the known web security issues, like XSS. In fact, this from Google:

By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites.

So that’s the real reason why we’re so gung-ho about it: Google Chrome is a step in Passpack’s direction.

I Want to Associate OpenID to My Passpack

Go to Settings then click on the new OpenID & 3rd Parties – Associate Another Loginoption

Read the instructions on the new page, then press Start Now

In a new screen you will be asked to insert your OpenID identity: you can either write it all out by hand, or type your nick and then select the provider from the list at the bottom to automatically format it correctly

You will be taken to the provider’s page for authentication. Sign in, tell your provider to “allow Passpack” (or a similar option)

You will then be taken back to your Passpack Welcome Message, where you’ll have to insert your Packing Key and you’re back in your account

A confirmation message will appear saying that the OpenID identity has been successfully associated to your account.

You can associate as many OpenID identities as you wish, so go at it and have fun!

The process is identical for Google and Windows Live, the only difference is that there is no need to set Passpack as a trusted site.

Oops, I Forgot

Of course, if you want, you can always choose to sign up with the traditional User ID, Pass and Packing Key combination.